A woman who is waiting two and a half months for a new passport fears she will not make it to a friend’s wedding in the Caribbean.

Tearful Roisin Connolly, 20, spoke in light of a backlog of applications that hit the Department of Foreign Affairs in recent months.

The Leitrim native travelled from her hometown to the Mount Street passport office in Dublin after getting no response from them in over two months.

Speaking outside the passport office in Dublin today, she told the Irish Mirror: “I haven’t had an email back or call back - absolutely nothing.

“I’ve been told, ‘oh yeah we’ll send emails to check up, we’ll get you in as soon as possible’ - I was like, ‘okay, yeah yeah yeah’, and it just got to that stage where I had to come up myself and stand up in front of them.”

With less than a week to go before her departure, she was told she would now have to bring in proof of a friend’s wedding that she is due to attend.

“Basically we got this slip saying that I need to email [them] up with proof that I’m travelling, proof of the actual wedding, and I have to come back up the 18th June to renew it - but I’m going the 19th.”

An Irish passport (Image: Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

Read More

“I don’t know what I’m going to do to be honest, it’s just like a kick in the teeth.

“I’ve waited what, two months, and I’ve actually come to see them and I sat in there for about 45 minutes and then stood there at the counter for five minutes and got information that I need proof of the wedding and that was it.”

Meanwhile, another woman had to call off her holiday on the spot when she was told there is no way she would get her passport in time.

Amy O’Neill, 29, was devastated when she discovered all emergency appointments had been booked out after being told her original application would not be ready in time for her holiday.

She was planning a family vacation to surprise her boyfriend but was told she would now have to cancel.

She said: “[The clerk] said to cancel that application and bring in €165 with new photos and a new application if you get an emergency appointment, but we checked online and all the emergency appointments are gone - we’re supposed to go on Saturday.

She added: “I’m not going now.”

Another applicant had a close call with destiny as he received his documents one day before departure.

Luke Newman, 19, of Castleknock said he had put in his application at the start of May but was forced to follow up after getting no contact from the department.

Luke Newman outside the Passport Office on Mount Street as he awaits his documents the day before departure